Nigerian missionaries in Europe: history repeating itself or a meeting of modernities?[1]
Abstract
This article discusses the question how to construct a vantage point from which to study the phenomenon of Nigerian missionaries in Europe. When theoretical frameworks extrapolating from the history of religion in Western Europe are used to understand a religious network that originated in Nigeria, Nigerian missionaries and missionaries from the Global South inevitably appear as a case of history repeating itself and even as ‘premodern’. In contrast, Africanist literature provides an understanding of the ways in which oppositions between tradition and modernity are constructed and used in Nigerian Pentecostalism that is very different. This literature however, does not provide ways to engage with the European contexts in which Nigerian missionaries operate. Therefore the article suggests that the encounter between Nigerian missionaries and European contexts might be most fruitfully conceptualized as a ‘meeting of modernities’ (inspired by Eisenstadts notion of ‘multiple modernities’), each implying a ‘denial of coevalness’.
Key words: Nigerian missionaries, Western Europe, multiple modernities, denial of coevalness
1. Introduction
Three years ago, I started on a research project that takes place in 3 different European countries: Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands[2]. The project centred on the Redeemed Christian Church of God. The Redeemed Christian church of God is the largest Pentecostal church in Nigeria, and perhaps in the world[3]. It is present in more than 150 countries, including the Netherlands. In terms of their aspirations, the RCCG presents a challenge to European self-identity: it intends to win the world, and by extension Europe, for Christ.
Often, I felt I had to avoid falling into the trap of seeing ‘history repeating itself’: the 19th century missionary ambitions of Europe, including the language used to justify these ambitions, were uncomfortably easy to recognize in some of the rhetoric of Nigerian missionaries. For example, when reading this opening paragraph of a hagiography of the leader of the RCCG, Enoch Adejare Adeboye:
The lamp was lit in the dark heart of the African jungle, but before the environment could acknowledge its glow, strong winds were swirling around its flame to snuff it out. It took God to preserve this bright lamp[4]
The text continues with references to malaria, snapping crocodiles, analfabetism and extreme poverty, all building up to a glorious success story: Adeboye became the head of one of the largest Pentecostal churches worldwide, with millions of followers. While talking to Nigerian missionaries and Pentecostals in Nigeria they often referred to their perception of Europe as wealthy and comfortable, in contrast to Nigeria which they saw as ‘backward’. Against this background, this opening paragraph appeared as a refraction of a European ‘Heart of Darkness’ discourse that was already criticized by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe 50 years ago:
Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as "the other world," the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant bestiality. [5]
Yet I knew that seeing this kind of language as evidence of an older, European mindset amounts to a ‘denial of coevalness’[6] that is not realistic and ignores the historical trajectory and religious self understanding of the author and his intended public. Denial of coevalness is a term elaborated by Johannes Fabian as a critique of the conventions of writing about ‘others’ as if they live in a different time. Although the practice of ethnography is based on sharing time, and therefore coevalness, the style of writing and analysing within anthropology, according to him, imply a denial of coevalnes, projecting ‘the other’, the object of study in anthropology, into history, creating distance. But then, how can we understand this apparent mimicry? What scales from ‘backwardness’ towards ‘modernity’ are invoked in texts such as the one quoted above?
I will return to these questions later. First, it is important to note that these questions are intimately tied to the decision of how to frame the phenomenon of Nigerian missionaries in Europe. From the outset of the research-project, almost every framework that suggested itself, seemed to involve some kind of an evolutionary scale. For example, the parishes of the RCCG and other Nigerian initiated churches can be categorized as migrant churches, thus generating questions such as ‘do these churches help or hinder integration? Will these migrants eventually lose their ‘religious baggage’’? In the research proposal underlying the project, Nigerian Pentecostals in Europe were seen as an example of reverse mission. This refers to a very general trend that intends to describe the phenomenon that those who used to be conceptualized as the ‘targets’ of the European missionary enterprise, now conceptualize themselves as missionaries and have plans to re-evangelize Europe[7]. This generates questions such as: ‘are they successful in converting European ‘natives’[8]’? but also: ‘is this not a case of history repeating itself (and therefore doomed to fail)’? The literature on reverse mission in turn overlaps with an emerging body of literature on ‘Southern’ missionaries, usually Pentecostals[9]. Another body of literature that has bearing on this phenomenon is that on the ‘shift’ in the centre of gravity in Global Christianity which used to be located in the ‘North’ but has now shifted towards the global south; raising the question ‘who will determine the future of Christianity, the North or the South?’[10].
At the same time, a body of literature about globalization[11], multiple modernities[12] and the study of Christianity in Western Africa[13] is emerging that can provide a basis for much more complex and sensitive understanding of what Nigerian missionaries are doing in Western Europe. Literature on Pentecostalism and evangelicalism as global religious movements[14] and in particular a recent study of ‘new mission’ churches in Europe furthermore puts this development in the broader context of the missionary ambitions of evangelical and Pentecostal movements from the Global South[15].
The solution then, seemed simple: adopt the vocabulary from this literature that does more justice to the self-perception of Nigerian missionaries or, as the case may be, to missionaries from other countries and that avoids these evolutionary frameworks. This literature, however, does not really engage with the fact that these Nigerian missionaries were now in Europe at least geographically. I was interested in studying the intersections of different worlds that seem to come together, overlap, and interact in quite puzzling ways that often had very little to do with a real understanding of each other’s worlds.
Due to this focus on intersections, thinking through how to frame the research theoretically slid into an examination of how academic, political and popular ways of framing the topic of research interacted with the ways in which Nigerian missionaries framed themselves. These issues of framing thus threw up the pressing question how to construct a vantage point from which to study the encounter between Nigerian missionaries and western European contexts without myself becoming involved in the categories and ways of ‘othering’ that these encounters generate. Apparently, there are particular conceptions of history and the future, oppositions between tradition and modernity at stake that are radically different for all parties involved. In the case of Western European conceptions of modernity, the analysis is complicated because the social sciences are themselves intimately involved in constructing visions of the developments and place of religion in modernity, mainly through the large and influential body of literature on secularization that, in the Netherlands at least, has become firmly lodged in the popular mindset. As I noticed when reading the opening paragraph of the hagiography cited above, there are certain knee-jerk reactions towards the style in which Nigerian Pentecostals present themselves, observed in myself and in others, which are so deeply ingrained that it is often hard to trace where they are coming from.
Even though the literature on secularization has been repeatedly criticized, pointing to the rise of religion worldwide and arguing that Europe is an exceptional case, the central issue of how to re-conceptualize the relationship between religion and modernity in a way that does not necessarily imply that the one will cause the decline or irrelevance of the other, has not yet been resolved.[16] This issue generates questions that run parallel to the ones generated by the encounter between Nigerian missionaries and other ‘new missionaries’ and western European conceptualisation of modernity and the place of religion in it: what is modernity, who is modern and who is ‘lagging behind’? Are some religions more adjusted to modernity than others? How is religion transformed by modernity? Are some religions just temporary reactions that will fade away[17]? Should religion be allowed to play a role in modern liberal democratic societies[18]?
Constructing a vantage point from which to study the encounter between Nigerian missionaries with European realities without falling into the trap of a denial of coevalness underpinned by Western European notions about religion and modernity therefore implicates the core questions concerning the sociological study of religion. I will argue that the challenge is not to answer these questions, but to analyse how and why they are generated and what assumptions underlie them.
In what follows I will first show how dominant ways of conceptualizing religious change in Europe can lead to the perception of Nigerian missionaries as a case of history repeating itself (2). I will then contrast this with the self-perceptions of the Nigerian missionaries in question, as well as with Africanist understandings of the relation between religion and modernity in Western Africa in general and Nigeria in particular (3). These self-perceptions and the literature on religion in West Africa all point out that ‘being religious’ involves quite different understandings of ‘modernity’. The fourth section will therefore discuss the concept of multiple modernities ($). Finally, this article will close with a general discussion of the implications for the study of globalizing religion (5). This article can do no more than point to some of the issues at stake here; many of the questions raised will have to be elaborated in more detail in another place.
2. Conceptualising religious change in Europe
In 2007, when starting this research, I had just defended my PhD-thesis on religious change in the Netherlands and was regularly invited to give popular lectures on this topic. At the end of these lectures, people often asked me whether I would continue this research. When I told them that I was now involved in a project that looked at the spread of Nigerian Pentecostal churches in Europe that had ambitions to evangelize Europeans, the reactions of the audience were often quite indignant. They found this a marginal and unimportant topic (they had never met a Nigerian missionary) but also, they saw this as an attempt to ‘turn back the clock’ that was doomed to fail, and for this reason, not worth studying. These audiences felt that they had just ‘emancipated’ themselves from religion.
This response has to do with a particularly Dutch notion of the character of religion described also by Kennedy and Valenta: ‘the widespread assumption that all religions, whatever their divergences, essentially share in common inherent tendencies towards violence, irrationality, dogmatism and authoritarianism that need to be carefully monitored and controlled if modern egalitarian social relations and democracy are not to come under threat’ [19]. Becoming modern, to the Dutch, meant overcoming these tendencies in religion or even overcoming religion altogether.
Until now, audiences of students react in a similarly incredulous and dismissive way. They do not deny that it is worth studying, but they often cannot conceal a smile when I tell them about the ambitions of the RCCG. The whole notion of being evangelized seems ridiculous to most students; they see evangelization and mission as something that belongs to a religious past that has been left behind.
A minority of Christian students react differently, and are often more knowledgeable about the different ways of being Christian in the contemporary world. The conviction and enthusiasm of Pentecostal churches, of which Nigerian Pentecostal churches seem to represent one of the most dynamic strands, fascinates them. This openness also characterized the ‘Dutch Dutch’ members of the RCCG I spoke to in the Netherlands, who often had previous experience in Pentecostal or evangelical circles before joining the RCCG. While accepting the missionary ambitions of the RCCG they criticized what they saw as a lack of contextualization, drawing a historical parallel[20]:
I always tell them, they are making the same mistake as we did. We used to go to Africa, and preach a European gospel to them. We insisted on wearing a three piece suit while going into the interior. And now they are coming here, also wearing a three piece suit and we are not wearing that kind of thing anymore! (interview with a (white) Dutch member of a Nigerian Pentecostal church)
Nigerian missionaries coming to Europe and making ‘the same mistakes’ seems to be a reminder of civilising and missionary ambitions that many western Europeans do not want to be associated with anymore. It is associated, both for non Christians and for Christians, with a paternalistic religious history that Dutch people feel they have thankfully left behind.